Cooking Up a Storm

As a cooking instructor, students are constantly asking my advice on kitchen purchasing decisions. There are the gadget freaks (I prefer less clutter), those who refuse to spend a buck (a cheap dull knife really isn't better), those who don't like touching food (garlic press), and my favorite, the fat-phobes who believe it's possible to cook tasty food without fat and swear by their fat-free oils and nonstick pans.

One of the most important kitchen investments a home cook can make is the skillet. Let's review the most popular options: nonstick, stainless, and cast-iron.

Starting in the center of a controversial debate, let's take a look at the nonstick skillet. Teflon is the brand name of a thermoplastic fluoropolymer introduced by DuPont as a commercial product in 1946. It has the least friction of any known solid material, and is used primarily as a nonstick coating in applications as varied as kitchenware, armor-piercing "cop killer" bullets, the valves and seals in the pipes holding uranium in the Manhattan Project, and, less aggressively, to keep furniture, carpet, and clothing stain-free. Teflon has also become part of the common vernacular: "The Teflon President" (Ronald Regan) and "Teflon Don" (John Gotti). ...